By Elijah de Castro
During the second day of the 2022 Global Model European Union simulation, delegates of the Heads of Government council continued discussions regarding the European Union response to rising military tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
The previous day, most member nations of the council expressed strong support for imposing sanctions on Russia. The council walked away from the first day having passed a six month extension of a travel ban on key Russian officials and oligarchs as well as passing commitments in infrastructure spending, anti-corruption efforts and education in Ukraine.
On the second day, many proposed sanctions on Russia were voted on and passed. The delegations for Germany, Czechia, Belgium, Lithuania, Austria, Croatia, Ireland created a joint proposal including multiple new sanctions that passed.
One of the sanctions was a commitment by member states to immediately halt all sales, imports, exports, and transfers of defense equipment to Russia.
Olaf Scholz, the delegate for Germany, argued the importance of this sanction because of the European Union’s previous response to Russia-Ukraine tensions in 2014.
“In 2014, during the year of the Ukraine crisis, there were still European defense contractors making arm sales to Russian entities while the annexation of Crimea was going on,” Scholz said. “We don’t want to repeat the same mistake.”
Another sanction that was passed had been discussed during the previous day’s debates. The sanction will sever ties with the Russian financial system, specifically six of Russia’s largest banks. According to Statistica, the Russian financial system manages nearly 104 trillion Rubles in assets. Michael D. Higgins ,the delegate from Ireland, voiced his support of the sanction.
“Attacking the Russian banks is really going to hurt their economy,” Higgins said. “Since they won’t be able to do any business with the European Union as a whole, that’ll be a great consequence for their aggression against Ukraine. So I think we should all be in favor of this across the board.”
Another potential sanction that was discussed was proposed by the delegate from Estonia. The sanction would expel Russia from the SWIFT banking system, a complicated financial messaging system based in Belgium. The proposed sanction would kick in sometime in the future if Russia does not respond to the already proposed sanctions.
“There has been a suggestion of cutting off the SWIFT banking system,” the delegate from Estonia said. “The delegate believes this would be a great path to consider. Perhaps adding additional clauses of sanctions that will come in the future offers a carrot to the proverbial stick of what we already have. That way Russia has reason to respond to these in a timely manner.”
Numerous other sanctions were passed, such as member nations immediately placing an embargo on all raw materials being exported from Russian defense contractors and reducing transportation exports by 30% by the end of 2022.
Finally, the Council voted yes on an GEU statement on Russian aggression towards Ukraine, which it had failed to pass after multiple rounds of voting the previous day.
“The European Union recognizes the military build-up and aggressive rhetoric from Russia towards Ukraine,” the statement said. “Furthermore, the European Union fully supports the sovereignty of Ukraine, and its rights as an independent nation. In the face of further aggression on behalf of Russia towards Ukraine and its sovereignty, the European Union will respond in the appropriate economic and diplomatic capacity.”